The Knight is a 3rd-Party class supplement for MCDM's tabletop roleplaying game, DRAW STEEL! Become a master of arms and armor, fly your Personal Heraldry high, and stay one step ahead of the enemy with Fighting Stances!
The Knight is a third-party digital supplement for MCDM's heroic, fantasy, tabletop role-playing game, Draw Steel! Contained within this supplement are a fully-featured player Class, 3 Subclasses, a collection of class-exclusive Retainers, and a "Goodie Bag" full of extra content like Kits, Perks, Titles, and more!
In many ways, I consider the Knight to be an example of the classic "fighter" archetype, elevated to super-heroic proportions of a Draw Steel class. With the exception of one subclass, the Knight sticks to its roots as a mostly-mundane master of arms and armor. At the core of the Knight's gameplay are several key features:
Personal Heraldry Fly your colors, display your deeds, and declare yourself on the battlefield! Create a set of Heraldry unique to your knight. This heraldry represents your virtues, triumphs, and deeds, which accumulate over the course of your adventuring career, providing you with mechanical benefits both in and out of combat.
Fighting Stance Read the battlefield, anticipate the actions of your foes, and change the way you fight from round to round! Fighting stances enable a knight to create ironclad defenses, press the assault against the enemy, and dictate the tempo of an engagement.
Questing Companion What would a knight be without a trusty squire or a noble steed? At level 3, choose either an Apprentice or a Knightly Mount (which are special, knight-exclusive retainers) to join you in battle. Or, if you are the type to eschew such attachments, take the path of the Lone Wolf.
Here's what playtesters have said so far about The Knight:
The Knight feels like a domineering force in a melee. The choices provided in both the Fighting Stance and Heraldry systems empower you to carve your name upon the battlefield.
- Kyle Strong (Chuckling Chest Games)
There is no greater satisfaction than saying "I am not left-handed" before suddenly turning the tides.
- Fernando Miguel "Ritehunter" Lofranco
In my head, it's like I am the main character in a Kurosawa film.
The core class and 3 subclasses are already feature complete through level 10; they are available both as a PDF and a Forge Steel sourcefile. Also complete is a selection of 6 retainers and a collection of extra content including Kits, Perks, Titles, and Rivals for each echelon of play.
Additionally, The Knight already contains several pieces of commissioned artwork:
[Cover art] Sword Saint, by @Sleepy
[page 3, 5] Heraldry, by Adam Hunt aka @AdamantAce
All other artwork within The Knight has been sourced from the public domain and has been accredited as such.
What's Being Funded?
The primary goal of this backerkit campaign is to fund additional artwork and playtesting.
More specifically, the initial backerkit funding goal will enable me to improve The Knight in the following ways:
Commission a fully-rendered character portrait of the "iconic knight," set on a detailed background.
More Heraldry! Commission 3-5 examples of "upper-level" heraldry, complete with all of the additions and embellishments that a knight might earn over the course of their entire adventuring career.
Commission 1-page piece of fiction about the "iconic knight" from a professional writer.
Hire professional editing for the entirety of content within The Knight.
Playtest levels 6-10 of the class.
Regarding playtesting: levels 1-5 have been playtested extensively; I have a high degree of confidence that they are both fun and balanced. A successful backerkit will enable me to take time to coordinate the remaining playtesting needed for levels 6-10 and provide compensation to playtesters. I want anyone who plays the final version of the Knight to do so with the full confidence that the class has been thoroughly tested and can stand as a peer beside the classes of the core rules.
If there is enough interest in the Knight, and we exceed the initial funding goal, I would love to expand the scope of this project and provide an even better product for backers! Additionally, for each stretch goal we hit, I will sponsor 5 community copies of The Knight, which will be distributed randomly to followers of this backerkit campaign.
$2500 - Subclass Artwork + 5 community copies A piece of commissioned art for each of the three subclasses: Arcanist, Bannerlord, and Knave. Done as portraits without background, or as silhouettes in the style of the current cover art. $3000 - Martial Lineage: Knight-Psionicist + 5 community copies Development of a 4th subclass and commissioned art to support it! "Knight-Psionicist" is a placeholder name for a subclass that combines weaponry and psionics in a way that is analogous to how the Knight-Arcanist combines weaponry and magic.
$3500 - Attempted Codex Implementation + 5 community copies I cannot guarantee that the Knight will be implemented into the Codex, but I can guarantee that a developer will be hired to attempt implementation. $4000 - Questing Companion Artwork + 5 community copies A piece of commissioned art for each of the 6 "Questing Companion" retainer options: Standard Bearer, Student of the Blade, Fell Destrier, Hunting Hound, Noble Griffon, and Lesser Drake. Done in the style of black and white sketches, or portraits with no background.
$4500 - Fully Arted + 5 community copies At this stretch goal, I will have the funds to remove most (if not all) public domain art pieces and replace them with commissioned pieces.
Hello! And thank you for reading this far! I'm Jacob, but I usually go by "Jacons" (pronounced JAY-cons) in online spaces. I am a TTRPG gamer, homebrewer, and (as of you reading this) amateur developer. If you frequent Draw Steel's online spaces, you might know me from one of the various tools or projects that I maintain for the homebrewing community:
The Draw Steel Ability Creation Sheet - a powerful tool for quickly creating and evaluating the strength of Hero and Monster abilities.
As long as I have been playing games, I have been taking them apart, tinkering with their mechanics, and putting them back together with a mish-mash of homebrewed additions. This class represents my first foray into publishing content for a wider audience.
The development of The Knight really began because of my own desire to play a (non-Tactician) fighter-type character in Draw Steel. It is an archetype that I have always been drawn to and one that I felt was sorely missing form the core rules. Above all else, I have strove to make something that is fun and that I personally want to play.
If you want to play a knight RIGHT NOW, you can! The class preview (linked in the introduction section above) is a 23-page PDF, containing levels 1-4 of the class and all of the "extras." Also in the preview link are 3 pre-generated character sheets (1 for each subclass), and a sourcefile that you can upload to ForgeSteel.net and use to create a character from scratch.
Timeline
May 2026 - The Backerkit Campaign Opens! Between May 6th and June 3rd, you will be able to back the Knight, or follow the project for a chance at a Community Copy. Anyone who pledges at the "Knight" level or above will immediately receive a PDF of the current playtesting documents (Version 0.8.2), containing levels 1-10 of the class.
June 2026 - Backerkit Campaign Closes Work on the funded items will begin immediately! Once the backerkit campaign closes, I will immediately begin commissioning artwork, coordinating playtests, and preparing The Knight for full release! Also at this time, any community copies purchased by backers or unlocked via stretch goals will be assigned to random followers of the campaign.
September 2026 - Full Release All backers will receive their digital copies of The Knight (Version 1.0.0). For those who missed the opportunity to back this project or who simply wanted to wait for full release, the Knight will be available for purchase and download at jacons.itch.io.
Project Risks As started before, the class is feature-complete through all 10 levels. If you back this project, you do so with little-to-no risk. You WILL receive a complete class that has been playtested and polished over the better part of a year. The primary benefits of a successful backerkit campaign are more artwork and a higher level of polish.
Lead Design and Direction: Jacob "Jacons" Consenz Cover Art: @Sleepylildruid Heraldry Art: Adam Hunt Playtesters: Nikki "Profan_Ity" Devitz, Spyger (Kyle), Ritehunter, Speck, Trulhammaren, Jenny [REDACTED], SurfingBird, Lebiro, Jon de Nor, Other Feedback and Review: Tamwin5, danielolobo, TheBeardedRussian, Alex Mont, EchoSerenity, and many more from the Draw Steel Brewery discord server.
